Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

The Al Aqsa test to make sure you aren't a sneaky Jew

From iNews (UK), a story of a Muslim woman who married a non-Muslim man (who converted to Islam for her) and how she was treated in the Arab world:

Although my ex-husband formally converted in Al-Azhar, he did not take a Muslim name. That was enough to render his faith as “questionable”. Shortly before midnight, after touring Damascus, we were interrupted in our hostel room by a rude wake up call – literally. An aggressive voice at the door said, “We are the night staff, we need to check your marriage certificate.” Although we had shown the precious certificate to the afternoon staff earlier, the night staffs were not convinced. They wanted to check it one more time – at around midnight. “This is a Muslim country, and you claim to be Muslim,” one of them said. The two hostel staff looked bemused and offended when I responded angrily, “Yes, I am Muslim, and I have the right to choose my husband.”

Even in my native country Egypt, officials, hotel employees and others we met on tour questioned his Islamic credential.

We had, however, a particularly challenging encounter at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. To enter the Dome of the Rock, my ex-husband was asked to perform ablutions (the ritual of washing before prayers), apparently to prove he was not a Jew. According to one of the guards, this was a necessary ritual because “Jews occasionally want to break into the sacred site.”

In England, the challenges and grilling continued. One night was particularly distressing when a well-educated, senior medical colleague of mine (a doctor) volunteered, “to educate me” about how God would punish me if my husband stopped performing his Islamic duties. This colleague then said, with no small degree of condescension: “I know a girl who made your stupid mistake; she was eventually punished by God who cursed her with a rare skin disease.”

(h/t Mike)

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Chag sameach! Again!

This is the final of this season's holidays. I won't be blogging from sundown on the US East Coast until Saturday night.

Israel once issued a series of stamps to celebrate Simchat Torah flags that children use in synagogue. Here they are:

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I love when Arabs pretend to love the Mizrahi Jews they persecuted

Al Jazeera has an op-ed by Susan Abulhawa, who claims that Israel is a racist country because of its treatment of Mizrahim (Jews from Arab countries) as second class citizens.

Yes, Al Jazeera has breaking news from 1954.

Obviously Alulhawa doesn't give a damn about Mizrahi Jews, or else she might have spared a word about how they have all been ethnically cleansed from Arab countries, as well as how badly they were treated by Arab Muslims and Christians for centuries.

Absurdity abounds throughout the article, as Abulhawa claims that the entire idea of Mizrahi Jews is a fake construct made up by Israel to take away their individuality:

Thus, the word Mizrahim, from the Hebrew and Arabic words meaning "those of the East," was popularised to lump all of these peoples of different nations into a single miscellaneous category that erased their individual ancient histories and cultures that spanned thousands of years of life and tradition, replete with countless and invaluable achievements in their respective nations.

What about the word "Sephardic"? Was that also an attempt to homogenize Jews who were not Ashkenazi?

And didn't Zionism do the same thing with Jews from Russia, Poland, Germany and Hungary, by lumping them all together as "Ashkenazi Jews"? Didn't they each have their own cultures and traditions that were also subsumed under the Israeli umbrella as Israel struggled to integrate every Jew to become a new nation?

Was that racism too?

Traditional Jews have maintained much of their culture, whether from the West or the East. And Israel has incorporated parts of Mizrahi culture into its society. The idea of Ashkenizi and Sephardi Jews intermarrying is utterly normal, and has been for decades, which is surprising from such a "racist" society (which has had a Mizrahi president too.)

But Abulhawa's real agenda is clear from this hilarious final paragraph:

Israel has moved away slightly from early Zionism's contempt for our part of the world. And while it remains a colonial project, bent on erasing the native Palestinian presence, their social efforts are more focused on "indigenising" themselves to the land. The obstinacy of Arab Jews in clinging to their cultural roots has provided a convenient avenue to lay claim to regional indigenous culture. So now, Arab foods (like falafel, hummus, shakshouka), traditional Arab clothing (like tatreez, galabiyas, keffiyehs), and Arab folkloric dances are all being rebranded as "Israeli," yet another phase of colonial renaming, and they use the rebranded Arab Jews to justify their claim.

It's always about the falafel.

Abulhawa's ridiculous attempts to smear Israeli Jews of European origin prove only one thing: She's the racist, not the Israelis.

The fact is that Jews from Arab countries were always second class citizens, much more persecuted than they ever were in Israel 60 years ago. And Abulhawa is quite OK with that.

(h/t Matan)

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19 Swiss MPs submit motion to remove UNHRC Agenda Item against Israel

A loose translation of a motion submitted to the Swiss parliament:

The Federal Council is instructed to propose to the UN Human Rights Council to delete item 7 of its permanent agenda.
The creation of the UN Human Rights Council in June 2006 must be attributed primarily to an initiative by Switzerland and Micheline Calmy-Rey, then Federal Councilor. Shortly after its work began, the Council established a permanent ten-point agenda, which has since been systematically followed at all sessions.

The agenda reads as follows:

Item 1. Organizational and procedural matters
Item 2. Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General
Item 3. Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development
Item 4. Human rights situations that require the Council’s attention
Item 5. Human rights bodies and mechanisms
Item 6. Universal Periodic Review
Item 7. Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories
Item 8. Follow-up and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action
Item 9. Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance, follow-up and implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action
Item 10. Technical assistance and capacity-building

It was then decided by a majority of the voters that the human rights situation in the countries of the world would be dealt with under different agenda items. On the other hand, the question of Israel and Palestine is discussed in item 7, created specifically for this purpose. The situation prevailing in all the other countries is examined in points 4 and 10. In practice, point 7 is subject to one to two days of discussions each time, while Council has only granted only a few hours of its time to the situation in the rest of the world. Thus, since June 2006, it adopted 68 resolutions against Israel, and 67 concerning all the rest of the world.

Given the real human rights situation in the world, Switzerland, which had actively worked for the establishment of the UN Human Rights Council, would do well more than ten years later to propose that the Council to delete item 7, which specifically refers to Israel. It should be committed to promoting respect for human rights in general, rather than supporting the systematic piling on a single country.

What is insane is that the Western nations have never prioritized this, thereby telling the Arab world that they can do whatever they want without opposition.

(h/t UN Watch)

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10/10 Links Pt2: Tablet Mag Goes Full Antisemite; AJ planted undercover reporter in US pro-Israel groups

From Ian:

IsraellyCool: Tablet Mag Goes Full Antisemite

With the news of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s fall from grace clogging the news cycle, it was only a matter of time before we would see antisemitic articles stressing the fact he is Jewish, and somehow connecting it to his despicable behavior.

And none is worse than this article from Neo Nazi site The Daily Stormer.

Excerpt:
At first squint, Harvey Weinstein seems like a very familiar type. Isn’t he the old, same old, another rich, entitled, powerful man with a bad dye job abusing his might to coerce women into sex? Isn’t Harvey just like Roger Ailes, or Bill O’Reilly, or, for that matter, Bill Clinton? But look at the details of the case and you’ll see that the answer is no. Harvey is different. Harvey, sadly, is a deeply Jewish kind of pervert.

As despicable as you may find Ailes, O’Reilly, and the other grabby goyim, you’ll recognize their behavior fits a pattern as old as time itself, as trite as Fox’s complaints about the “war on Christmas”: Men crave sex, and the worst of them will obtain it by whatever means necessary. These despicable gents have power and influence, and they aren’t above promising a lucrative gig—or threatening to take it away—to get laid. In these transactions, women are nothing but objects, and any “consent” is just an illusion. Morally, the men are no better than the pimps who crowd into James Franco’s character’s bar on The Deuce, the new HBO show; psychologically, they are no more complex than the johns. Cash in, cum out. The women are collateral damage.

Only it was not really from The Daily Stormer. It is from Tablet Mag, an American-Jewish publication.

What makes this even more infuriating is I have always found Tablet to be proudly Jewish. We are not speaking about the Jewish Forward or Ha’aretz here, which are constantly providing grist for the antisemites’ mill. In fact, one of its writers, Yair Rosenberg, constantly writes about antisemitism and describes himself on Twitter as a “troller of Nazis.”

This article will no doubt be spread far and wide by the same Jew haters Yair Rosenberg likes to write about and troll. I call on the managing editor of Tablet to remove the article immediately and issue an apology to its readers and Jews everywhere.

Shmuley Boteach: A shameful attack on Elie Wiesel

Quite a few questions arise from Ron Rosenbaum’s twisted and shameful attack in Tablet magazine on Elie Wiesel, the most famous Holocaust survivor.

First, what was the motive of the magazine’s editors in publishing the piece? It would be one thing if the column was of high literary quality and rhetorical merit.

But endless repetition alone demonstrates how this was a thoughtless hit piece, designed to disparage Wiesel in the most degrading way possible. How many times do we have to hear Rosenbaum’s description of Wiesel as “a golem of grief,” a man with “eyes circled in gloomy Dantean darkness, the Man in Black, the Johnny Cash of the death camps,” or read about Wiesel’s endless “cloud of gloom.”

We get it Ron. You believe that one of the most revered personalities of the 20th century and the man whom President Obama – whom you claim to have supported – called the “conscience of the world,” was a charlatan who utilized a melancholic affectation to increase stature. And my, aren’t you clever with all your colorful descriptions.

The second question is why Rosenbaum decided to even write his piece, given how much he insists Wiesel doesn’t matter. Rosenbaum’s column hammers home how much Wiesel “had passed his moment of real relevance,” “fewer paid attention to his stoic mien,” adding, “He was no Simon Wiesenthal.”

Ouch.

A Misleading Picture of Today’s Anti-Semitism

There is an article running in this month's issue of JLife (Orange County Jewish Life) by Lisa Armony, who is the director of the Rose Project, a financial arm of the Jewish Federation and Family Services of Orange County (California). It is entitled, Anti-Semitism in Charlottesville. Beginning with the recent incident in Charlottesville, Armony gives us a recitation of the history of anti-semitism in the 20th century. It is not what is in Armony's article that I take issue with. It is what is not in the article.

I do not dispute the facts of what Armony writes. Furthermore, I have no intention whatsoever of coming to the defense of people like Richard Spencer, David Duke, the KKK or neo-Nazis. They are all despicable and should be rejected by every decent American. However, there is a glaring omission here. Armony fails to write one single word about Islamic anti-semitism and the role it plays in today's anti-semitism. I happen to know Ms. Armony, and I have personally told her what I write below. In fact, we had a conversation last January at the Temple Bat Yahm in Newport Beach when that synagogue hosted an interfaith event dedicated to fighting racism, anti-semitism and Islamophobia. The event was dedicated almost as much to bashing President Trump, his supporters, and the alt-right. Here is what I wrote about the event at the time.

As laid out in the above link, Ms Armony refused to present my written question to the panel during Q and A. The question asked who was responsible for anti-semitism at UC Irvine, where I formerly taught part-time. The correct answer would have been Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Student Union and their invited speakers over the past several years. Indeed, it is the pro-Palestinian lobby on college campuses all over the US which has made campus life an unpleasant experience for so many Jewish students. Though not Jewish myself, I have seen it first-hand and have spoken out about it for some ten years. When the above meeting was ended, I made it clear to Ms. Armony that the worst purveyors of anti-semitism today are not neo-Nazis or skin-heads; rather it is Muslims (not all, of course). Armony told me that this was not the time or place to bring that up. Of course not. Present at the event were some prominent Muslim leaders from Orange Country including Imam Muzammil Siddiqi, who, in recent years, has lent out his Islamic Center of Orange County for Muslim students from UC Irvine to assemble their mock "apartheid wall" for display at UCI during the annual anti-Israel week of events every May, a most inconvenient fact, which I brought to his (and everyone else's) attention during a followup event at UCI featuring many of the same people.

Smack dab in the middle of Yom Kippur, my left eye decides to let me know it is not at all happy. Of a sudden, it hurts.

It hurts bad.

Would I go to our local emergency treatment center or tough it out?

I tough it out.

That night, I make the first possible appointment with the eye doctor. The appointment is two days away, first thing in the morning. I am resigned to the idea that this is, after all, my eye, and cannot be ignored. Even though it is that crazy period between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, a whirlwind of work, building, shopping, and cooking.

My husband is able to give me a lift to town, a mercy, since this cuts my travel time in half. Not yet caffeinated, I load myself into the car and find my photosensitive eyes assaulted by the bright morning sun. The car's sun visor not being nearly enough, I fold a tissue into the top of my eyeglasses so that I resemble a Muslim woman, my face all covered up. My son, in the backseat, is mortified. Someone might see!

"Put on your sunglasses," he cries.

Well, okay. I can do that. Sleepily, I dig into my purse, locate my sunglasses, slip off my glasses, and put on my shades. Ahhh. Much better. Even if I can no longer see anything, since my sunglasses are not prescription sunglasses and I'm unfortunately myopic (not as a blogger, of course!).

My eyeglasses are now resting in my lap. I kind of know I will forget they are there. It's the nature of the beast. I hope I won't.

But I do.

What happens next is this: we are held up by traffic and I am definitely going to be late for my doctor's appointment. I am upset. My husband and son assure me the doctor is stuck in the same traffic jam, not to worry.

I call the medical center and explain, and the staff confirms that the doctor and nurses have not yet arrived.

Phew. A relief.

Still, I am super nervous about losing that appointment, and as my husband pulls up to the curb, I already have my hand on the door handle, ready to push down and fly out of the car to race my way over to the medical center. Which I do.

I am halfway up the street when I realize, "My glasses!"

I run back down to the curb, looking up and down the sidewalks, the sparse city greenery, beneath the parked cars, out onto the street. But I cannot see my glasses anywhere.

Had I slipped them into my bag and forgotten? Had they slid off my lap into the recesses of my husband's car? I race to my appointment, while simultaneously rummaging through my bag and leaving a Whatsapp voice recording for my husband and son to check the car.

I pay for my appointment on one floor, then wait on another for the doctor, imagining my glasses being ground into dust as a million cars roll over them. Another expense, replacing those spectacles, and with the holidays already so costly. I am upset with myself.

My son messages me that the glasses are not in the car, that I should go knock on doors, look on a ledge for them. I barely register the words. I can't go anywhere. I am stuck at the medical center, awaiting my turn for the doctor.

I continue rummaging through my bag, explaining to the only other person in the waiting room, a tired, careworn woman, that I have lost my eyeglasses. She calls out suggestions where I might look. She is kind.

My glasses are not anywhere in my handbag.

The doctor calls me in. I tried to concentrate on what he says about my eyes and the complicated treatment plan he prescribes. He hands me various papers listing things I must buy and the instructions for their use.

I run down to the bottom floor pharmacy, grab a number, and wait my turn, drumming my fingers, impatient to go seek out my lost eyeglasses. My number is called after 20 minutes.

The pharmacist looks at the papers, sighs, and apologizes. The doctor had used the wrong form. I have to go back up and get him to make out a new prescription. Apparently, he'd done this before.

Many times.

I run upstairs, still hoping to finish up quickly so I might go search for my glasses. Panting, I reach the doctor's office, and the door is closed. That means someone is inside. By now, many patients are waiting for him in the waiting room.

I explain about my prescription to the room at large and all the people are nice, saying I can go in ahead of them. The door opens. I hasten inside. Explain the mistake, what I need from him.

The doctor is annoyed. "Look," he says, pointing to the blank lines for name and date. "They won't take the prescription because you haven't filled in your name and date."

"No," say I. "They won't honor the prescription because it isn't the form used by this HMO."

He argues. I am firm. He begins to shout.

In English he says. "Fill it in! I will go with you DOWN."

"No. They aren't going to take it. It's the wrong fo--"

"I will go with you DOWN!"

I look at him, hold his gaze. He looks back at me; a staring contest.

He breaks first, swiveling in his chair to face the keyboard, where he might type out the proper prescription, as he should have done in the first place.

The printer spits out my prescription, and the doctor applies his stamper to the paper with some (angry) force. I jump and stammer, "It's not MY fault!" and then too worried about my glasses to wait for the elevator, I race down four flights of stairs, back to the pharmacy.

I catch the pharmacist's eye and she indicates that as soon as she finishes up with her customer, I can cut in. I get the stink eye from everyone waiting there. They urge me to take a number. I explain the business with the wrong prescription. They pretend they don't hear or understand.

All this time, throughout my doctor's appointment, through the wait for the pharmacist, a second wait for the doctor and then for the pharmacist again, my husband and son are messaging me on Whatsapp with advice about where to hunt my glasses.

The pharmacist finishes with her client. I race to the counter, squabble with someone whose number has come up at the same time, the pharmacist backing me so the stalemate is broken.

At last, my prescriptions filled, I race back to the spot where my husband had dropped me off what now seems like hours ago, perusing every nook and cranny of the street and sidewalk and peering into shrubs.

I go into the closest apartment building, my husband having suggested someone might have seen the glasses and brought them into their home or office. That residential building on a weekday morning on a busy Jerusalem street is like a ghost town. Empty, dark, dank, and dusty.

I sigh. No point even knocking.

I come back out, look all around. My glasses are nowhere. Near tears, I give up, and look for a place to rest my handbag, so I can dig out my sunglasses for the walk to the bus station.

I see a ledge and make to set my handbag there. As I lower my purse to the ledge, I realize I am about to crush my glasses

They are right there on the ledge. Right in the place where I'd been about to place my bag.

I am astonished, jubilant! I pick up my glasses to look them over. They are completely unharmed. I slip them back onto my ears and nose, where they belong.

Someone had seen my glasses on the ground, picked them up, and placed them on the closest ledge, out of harm's way, knowing that the owner would be sure to return to the area to look for them.

It is an Israeli thing, the ledge as lost and found.

In Israel, ledges are the homes of lost yarmulkes of all colors and fabrics, be they colorfully embroidered, crocheted, or plain black satin. Ledges are the homes of pink barrettes and small precious toys, pacifiers or even a shirt carelessly slipped off before a pick-up game, forgotten and left behind. In Israel, ledges are homes to lost items and stale bread, since a ledge is also the place where a Jerusalem pigeon might find something good to eat, it being a sin to toss bread into the garbage.

My glasses had been out in plain view all along, there on that ledge. And even if they hadn't been out in plain view, the first thing my husband and son had said to me over that protracted Whatsapp correspondence was: check the ledges.

But I'd barely registered the words. My mind had been too busy with life in Israel, to register life in Israel, which, a lot of the time, is not about clerical mistakes and otherwise good people yelling at each other, but about the ledges. People who care about people putting lost things on ledges where the owners will find them.

All along I'd been looking down at the ground.

When I should have been looking up.

The Israeli custom of placing lost things on ledges is, you see, a microcosm for just about everything.

And looking up to find things is a metaphor for life.

Moadim L'Simcha!

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Ma'an Arabic publishes this Land rover press release as a news item:

Ritz Motors, the exclusive Land Rover dealer in Palestine, has created a Land Rover driving experience and has opened the door for participants seeking a chance to have an adventure.

The Land Rover Experience Tour #TrailToNamibia offers guests the opportunity to test the legendary Land Rover capabilities through a series of fun driving activities while exploring drivers' skills through a range of dynamic driving challenges.

The event, held in Palestine, is one of Land Rover's driving experiences in the Middle East and North Africa region, where winners in each market move to the final event hosted by the Emirate of Dubai in April 2018.

During the event, participants are given the opportunity to test the latest Land Rover models including the Range Rover, Range Rover Vellar, the all-new Discovery and Discovery Sport, allowing them to test the brand's best cars.

The event includes a variety of driving activities that not only test the driver's skills but also highlights the efficiency, versatility and quality of the brand.

These activities include driving in natural terrain, obstacles designed to test off-road and mountain driving, as well as dynamic control and road driving.

Non-drivers also have the opportunity to test Land Rover as a passenger.

For the younger brand lovers, a range of activities have been set up for the children, making the Land Rover driving experience #TrailToNamibia the perfect day for the entire family.

"The experience of driving from Land Rover is one of the most exciting and interactive activities in the world," said Mira Abu Shousha, Marketing Director, Ritz Motors. "We are thrilled that the event has impressed audiences of all ages."

Hold on - there is a luxury car dealership in the most oppressed region on Earth?

You mean that normal Palestinians don't look like this:

...but like this?

Does Breaking the Silence include this on their tours of the West Bank where they show the searing oppression of Israeli "occupation"?

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10/10 Links Pt1: Fatah: Dying for Allah “will create the State of Palestine”; The united Jerusalem delusion

From Ian:

PMW: Fatah: Dying for Allah “will create the State of Palestine”

In a post on Facebook, Abbas' Fatah Movement encourages Palestinians to die for Allah. It is Palestinians dying for Allah, the spilling of "the blood of the Martyrs," Fatah says, that "will create the State of Palestine."

Fatah posted the following text together with a collage of photos of terrorists:
"#Palestine"
"From the sea of the blood of the Martyrs (Shahids)
we will create the State of Palestine"
"Fatah Movement - The official page" [Official Fatah Facebook page, Oct. 3, 2017]

Palestinian Media Watch has documented that Fatah's student movement Shabiba at two different universities uses the same slogan, encouraging youth to adopt a path of violence and to become "Martyrs."

When Israel placed metal detectors at the Temple Mount entrances following an attack there in which 2 Israelis were murdered in July 2017, and Palestinians responded with violence and riots, Fatah encouraged Palestinians to "escalate" the riots and stated that "with our blood we will thwart the Zionists' plans."

How Palestine “Occupies” Itself

Of course, declaring a de facto state does not make it a reality. Nor will declaring that state to be “under occupation.” The reality is that both the essential non-existence and the victimized character of the Palestinian state represent a conscious decision to embrace failure. This will not change unless there are direct negotiations, a choice the PA has consistently refused.

While a functioning Palestinian state remains desirable, it is telling that the Palestinian leadership has refused to directly negotiate with Israel and uses bodies like the UN to endorse a “virtual” state with no viable institutions. Is the Palestinian goal a state of their own, or just the erasure of Israel? If the latter, it is to be followed by what? Insisting upon a Palestinian state must go hand in hand with reviving the moribund Palestinian political system and institutions that would support it, like a free press. But these are demands that should come first from Palestinians. When such demands come from Israel or Western countries, they collide with the narrative of “occupation.”

Palestinian nationalism has never seen the conflict as one between two national groups with legitimate claims and aspirations. Israel’s existence – indeed, Zionism itself, the very idea of Jewish nationalism – is regarded as wholly illegitimate. Palestinian acceptance of the two-state solution was a means of appeasing the West and its stated desire for all parties to live in peace according to democratic, national ideals. But for Arafat in his day and now for Mahmoud Abbas, the two-state solution was a mechanism with which to buy time until the Palestinians can finally overcome and defeat Israel. The language of “occupation” plays a key role.

Whether Palestinians think they are an “occupied state” or “Palestinian territories under occupation,” as long as Palestinians cling to the notion of being “occupied” and Israel remains the “occupier” we are destined to see more of the dynamics of the past and fewer possibilities in the future. Until we see more self-awareness, self-criticism, and a sense of accountability, Palestinian identity and statehood will remain occupied in perpetuity. Palestine is indeed “occupied” by shadows of its own making.

Barry Shaw: The united Jerusalem delusion

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week pledged to support a Greater Jerusalem bill that would annex places like Ma’aleh Adumim, Givat Ze’ev and villages in the Etzion Bloc and would allow their residents to vote in Jerusalem mayoral elections.

This bill would also create independent municipalities for Israeli-Arabs living within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries, but outside the security barrier.

Members of Knesset and mayors acclaim this move.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said that “applying Israeli law is the most important thing to make sure that everyone realizes that Jerusalem will remain united.”

Is Jerusalem united? Let me throw a bucket of icy water over those of our politicians who are in denial.

If Jerusalem were truly the undivided capital of Israel, how is it that at least 14 soccer clubs based in Jerusalem play under the auspices of the Palestinian Football Association, headed by Jibril Rajoub of the Palestinian Authority? As these clubs come under the PFA, which is a member of FIFA, the world governing body for soccer, these Jerusalem-based clubs are globally recognized as Palestinian, not Israeli. The Israel Football Association lost control of them decades ago.

Worse still, some of these clubs promote terrorism against Israelis as part of their footballing activities, with the full knowledge and approval of Rajoub. Some of these activities are supervised and funded by the PFA.

Welfare: aid in the form of money or necessities for those in need.
Websters Online

The Palestinian Authority's current "Pay for Slay" program to reward Palestinian terrorists for murdering Jews can be traced back as far as 1964, when Nobel Prize-winning terrorist Yasser Arafat first initiated the idea:

Arafat. Photo by Remy Steinegger -
originally posted to Flickr as Yasser Arafat -
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2001

Back then, a main goal was consolidating the power and influence of the PLO.

But it has continued and developed over time, but never intended to actually helping Arabs in need.

In an opinion piece for The New York Times, Matthew Levitt noted that during its iteration as the "Fund for Families of Martyrs and the Injured" the program was still not a part of any real welfare system:

According to the World Bank, “the program is clearly not targeted to the poorest households. While some assistance should be directed to this population, the level of resources devoted to the Fund for Martyrs and the Injured does not seem justified from a welfare or fiscal perspective.”

Matters have not gotten any better.

Eli Lake wrote last year that finally, the Palestinian reward system is getting attention:

For years the Israelis and the Americans didn’t do much on this issue. The Israel Defense Forces work closely with Palestinian security services to keep the peace in the West Bank. Meanwhile, the Bush and Obama administrations have pressed both sides to restart negotiations over a final status.

This is starting to change. On Friday, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced that he would begin withholding part of the tax revenue that Israel sends to the Palestinian Authority — equal to the amount paid to “martyrs.”

One aspect of the problem remains addressing this program for what it is.

Palestinian Media Watch has been a major source of information about this reward system and has been giving the impetus to various governments to recognize this practice for what it is and act accordingly.

PMW describes how the Palestinian Authority has institutionalized the stipends paid to terrorists and their families into law:

In April 2011, the Palestinian Authority Registry published a Government Resolution granting all Palestinian prisoners imprisoned in Israel for security and terror-related offenses a monthly salary from the PA (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 15, 2011). This new resolution, called PA Government Resolution of 2010, numbers 21 and 23, formalized what has long been a PA practice.

The PA defined which Palestinians would be considered "prisoners": "Anyone imprisoned in the occupation's [Israel's] prisons as a result of his participation in the struggle against the occupation" (Ch. 1 of Law of Prisoners, 2004/19, www.alasra.ps, accessed May 9, 2011)

According to the PA definition, more than 4,500 Palestinian prisoners (as of December 2012) serving time for terror-related offenses are recipients of PA salaries. This means that Palestinians convicted of crimes such as theft do not receive a salary, but Hamas and Fatah terrorist murderers do. [emphasis added]

That is one of the key points that is overlooked in confronting the continued Palestinian claim that the money is part of some humanitarian welfare fund. While the salary is targeted for criminals, it is intended for terrorists and their families alone.

This is not about a welfare system intended for the average family.

Another key point is that not only does this Palestinian law ignore the average needy family, the rewards it pays out to terrorists are as much as 5x what average Arab families are earning:

Watch the entire video:

A third proof that these are not welfare payments comes from the Palestinian Authority itself, as PMW notes:

These monthly payments to prisoners are paid from the PA’s general budget and income taxes are paid, as is the case with all other PA salaries (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2011). According to the language of the PA regulation as well as PA economic reports on government salaries, the monthly salaries to prisoners range from 1,400 shekels to 12,000 shekels. The PA economic report listed the prisoners’ salaries as part of the PA general salary budget, which includes civil servants, military personnel and others. (Life and the Market, supplement to Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2011). It was not listed as a social service payment. [emphasis added]

In fact, those stipends are still being described as "salaries" instead of "assistance":

Abbas calls terror stipends "salaries", not "assistance. Credit: Palestinian Media Watch

Thus far, Abbas has refused to stop paying the stipends -- though whether it is because of his own stubbornness or because he dares not stop such a popular measure.

The responsibility rests upon the West to refuse to provide any funding to the Palestinian Authority that goes toward paying any salaries, as long as the money goes toward encouraging terrorism.

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1872 researcher says explicitly that Palestine Arabs had no national character

As the centennial of the Balfour Declaration approaches, we will see more Arab propaganda about how Balfour destroyed the "Palestinian nation." For example, from Ramzy Baroud in Arab News

{Balfour] cared little about the fate of Jewish communities. His commitment to establishing a Jewish state on land already populated by a thriving and historically rooted nation was meant only to enlist the support of wealthy Zionist leaders for Britain’s role in the First World War.

I have looked for a long time for evidence of this "nation" without luck. I never found any element of culture or folklore that could be considered "Palestinian." But when I look for counter-evidence of this supposed nation, I came up with this article in a periodical from 1872:

THE ARAB FELLAHHEEN OF PALESTINE: WHO ARE THEY?

IT is impossible to live for any length of time, as the writer has done, in the Holy Land without being struck by the diverse character of its present inhabitants—that is to say, of the settled population, not including the annual pilgrims. In the various towns the inhabitants are more or less of various and of mixed race. In Jerusalem we find Jews, Moslems, and Christians of different sects and races. But all over the land in the rural districts the observer is met by the fact that in this small country are collected together people of various and distinct races as well as of diverse creeds.

Not now to dwell upon the peculiarities that distinguish from each other Samaritans, Maronites, and Druses, we pass on to the general rural population of Palestine, called Syrian or Arab, or, as by themselves, Fellahheen, i.e., "tillers of the soil."

They do not, properly speaking, form a nation. There is among them neither coherency nor spirit of patriotism. Just as the wild Bedaween are divided into distinct and generally hostile tribes, so the peasantry (Fellahheen) are divided into clans governed by their respective sheikhs. They speak a common, language, they possess a common religion; their manners and customs are generally the same all over the country. Yet of national unity there is absolutely none. They never combine for any purpose excepting when occasionally some clans aid each other in their faction fights. They are all classed, it is true, under the two great divisions of Yemeny and Kais, wearing white or red as the badge of these parties; but even then there is nothing among them approaching to the co-operation of patriots as a nation, ready and willing to join hand in hand for the mother country. The Turkish government well understand this important fact and take it into practical account in. their method of ruling the land. This state of things is in itself enough to explain in great measure the backward condition of the people at large. They have no national life. Every district lives in and for itself, and wages its own petty wars with its neighbours, but has neither interests nor action in common with any other.

The people of the various districts, moreover, differ considerably from each other, in outward appearance, in character, and in speech. They resemble each other just so far as to indicate descent from a common stock. They differ as the fragments of a nation may which has been broken up at an extremely remote period into distinct and hostile clans. All are Fellahheen, and yet all are apart from each other, independent and commonly at enmity.

Here is a person who lived in Palestine, who knows the land inside out (as the full article shows.) But he sees no evidence of a Palestinian people or nation.

It is a myth. But good luck teaching that at universities today.

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Everyone who visits the Kotel is a "settler" in Arab media

From popular Egyptian news site Youm7 (Seventh Day), showing pictures of Sukkot in Jerusalem.

This is using Google Translate but the translation of مستوطن يهودى is accurate:

I see this sort of thing all the time. Yesterday Arab media reported 22,500 "settlers" visiting the Tomb of the Patriarchs during Sukkot.

When it comes down to it, every Jew - especially the ones who are recognizably Jewish - is a "settler" to the Arab world. Peace agreement or not, "moderate" or not.

No Arab is complaining to Youm7 about their inaccurate reporting.

Just one of those inconvenient facts that starry-eyed peaceniks prefer not to think about as they blame Israel for no peace.

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Scene-by-scene description of anti-Israel play, The Siege, at NYU theatre

From JNS:

American Jewish leaders are denouncing plans by a New York University (NYU)-affiliated theater to host a play that portrays Palestinian terrorists as heroes.

The NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts will host performances of “The Siege” from Oct. 12-22. The play focuses on the Palestinian terrorists who, in order to avoid capture by the Israeli army, seized Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity in the spring of 2002 and occupied it for 39 days.

“The Siege” was created by the Freedom Theater of Palestine, which is based in the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Jenin. Among those promoting the play on YouTube is Ibrahim Abayat, one of the leaders of the church occupation. The Israeli government has identified him as the killer of New York City native Avi Boaz, in Bethlehem in early 2002.

The play was first performed overseas in England in 2015. The Board of Deputies of British Jews charged that it “promoted terrorism as positive and legitimate,” and the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland staged a protest rally outside the premiere.

American Jewish leaders now are similarly alarmed.

“Having witnessed firsthand the ‘siege,’ a blatant terrorist outrage, I am especially outraged at this presentation,” Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman and CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told JNS.org. “Diminishing the true nature of this brutal attack serves to whitewash terrorism at a time when this scourge is taking so many lives and threatening so many more.”

When it was performed in London, it was in Arabic with English subtitles. I couldn't find the script but I did find a detailed scene-by-scene description that shows how pro-terrorist the play is.

Scene – Tourist guide

The play opens in the Church of the Nativity. It is 2015.

A tourist guide, Issa, welcomes the audience. He is a bit surprised at the large amount of people; normally he takes groups of just a few, this time there is over a hundred.

Issa introduces himself, then goes on to talk about the Church of the Nativity. He talks about his family’s history dating back to the time of Jesus and how his ancestors have always worked in the church. It is the most important place in the world to them.

“Okay, now, before we begin, did we discuss money? No?... Okay this time it’s for free but please, if you would like to make a donation… Let’s go on the tour of the church.”

Scene -‐ Interview

Five men sit. They are the exiled fighters from the siege of the Church of the Nativity. It is 2015 and they are being interviewed.

Interviewer: “I need you to introduce yourselves, what was your role was and what can you remember from the siege?”

Taking a moment, the fighters gather their thoughts. They begin to speak: words, thoughts, feelings…

Video

The Israeli invasion of the West Bank comes on screen. We see tanks, helicopters and shooting. We see the fighters running across Manger Square, into the Church of the Nativity.

Scene – Refuge in The Church of the Nativity

The men enter the church. It is mass and the prayer is taking place. They wait for the Father to finish. The men ask him if they can take refuge in the church. He is upset; why are they in the church? This is a Holy place and not for fighting. The fighters explain that the Israeli army is outside, there is nowhere else to go. The Father is concerned that they will bring the fighting inside the church but in the end decides that as long as the men show respect, they have the right to take refuge in the house of God.

Scene – Fighter calls home

The fighters organize themselves in the church. They bandage one man’s wound. He is bleeding heavily and is in much pain. He makes a phone call to his pregnant wife and tells her to look after herself.

The Israeli army begins to surround the church. The fighters position themselves ready for an attack.

Video

We see tanks, helicopters and snipers surround the church. The siege of the Church of the Nativity has begun.

Scene – The bell ringer is shot

Silence everywhere. The sound of speakers demanding the fighters to surrender. A quarrel begins between the men about what to do. Some want to take the injured out, others want to stay. One man wants to shoot back. During their discussion, the church bells begin to ring. Tension builds. One of the fighters goes out. Then a gun shot. Panic.

The fighter enters. He tells the others that the bell ringer has been shot. Silence.

Scene – Phone call from the general

A cell phone rings. It is a call from the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah telling the fighters to have patience and not to shoot back. The fighters are angry; should they just sit here and die, one by one?

Video

The Israeli army prepares for an attack on the church. We see tracer fire and an explosion.

Scene – The attack

There is an explosion. The church is under attack. Israeli soldiers start to climb over the walls of the church. The fighters are in position, waiting. They open fire, killing four Israeli soldiers.

Scene – Celebration

The fighters celebrate their victory. They begin to get out of control. Eventually one of the men tells the others to control themselves and to behave with respect, not like animals. There is a fire in the church but everyone is so busy arguing they don’t notice it. Eventually the monk entersand asks them to calm down and remember to respect the church.

Scene – Tourist guide

It is 2015. Issa the tourist guide enters. He tells the history of the Church of the Nativity, including the story of the Massacre of the innocents. The Massacre of the innocents is the biblical narrative of infanticide by Herod the Great. Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the vicinity of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King. Issa shows the group where the bones of the children are buried and points out that this church has always been a place of refuge for the sons of Jesus.

Scene -‐ Interview

It is 2015. The exiled fighters are being interviewed.

Interviewer: Tell me about the first few days of the siege. What did youdo? What did you see?

The men explain that the first few days were the hardest. They had very little food and water and didn’t know if and when the Israelis would attack. “Despite all the difficulties, we were still able to sing, tell jokes and laugh. We had hope that the problem would be solved.”

Scene – Torture

Intense noise. The Israeli army are playing strange sounds as a means of psychological torture. It has been going on for hours. The fighters are going crazy. They begin to dance in resistance. Eventually silence. Relief.

A voice. It is the mother of one of the fighters. She has been brought to the church and is forced to speak at gunpoint. She tells her son that the whole family has been arrested. The Israelis want her to ask her son to leave the church. Instead she tells him that she will rip off the breast that fed him if he surrenders. The man is in shock. He grabs his gun and tries to exit the church. The others stop him.

Scene – Leadership

The man whose mother was brought to the church sits and talks with another man, who tells him about leadership and the importance of wisdom, endurance, mercy and understanding. He tells him to stay strong because the Israelis are trying to emotionally and psychologically break them. They must act with their minds, not their emotions.

Video

Negotiations. Internationals are arriving. Sharon, Israeli prime minister, speaks. Yasser Arafat, Palestinian leader, speaks.

Scene – Escape

One of the fighters enters. He had fallen asleep on guard and now there are people from the church missing. He goes to tell the others. They don’t understand how these people could have left the church unless they were collaborators. They accuse the man on guard of also being a collaborator. They go to take his gun but at that moment another man enters and tells the others not to punish him, it was not difficult to escape the church.

Scene – Injured fighter

The man whose leg is wounded is in immense pain. The designated medic among the fighters goes to check the wound and finds that it has become infected. The men decide that he must get out of the church even if it means he will spend the rest of his life in prison. Otherwise he will die. They begin to lift him up but the man grabs his gun and threatens to kill himself if they take him out. He begs the others to amputate the leg. The medic manages to speak to a doctor on the phone who recommends that they cut the gangrene off. They proceed to do so.

Scene – Food

As the wounded man sleeps someone suggests they must get him food to strengthen him. They start to imagine eating the perfect maklube and chocolate cake. One fighter tells a story of a time when he was lost in the mountains with his friends and they began eating leaves for survival. The men realize they can do the same; they can pick leaves from the courtyard to eat.

Scene – Picking leaves

Two men go outside. Drone footage on screen: the fighters going out to pick leaves.

The men cook and eat the leaves.

Scene – A fighter’s death

The man on guard receives a call from the father of another man. The father says he saw two white doves and his son coming home dressed in white.

The man whose father called wakes up and is angry with the guard for not waking him to watch the sunrise, a tradition they have created. The man takes over the guarding post.

Moments later there is a gunshot. The fighter has been hit by a sniper. The others try to save him but he is bleeding heavily. They shout at the Israeli soldiers to get him out but there is no answer. He bleeds to death.

Scene – Tourist guide

It is 2015. Issa tells his personal story and his connection to the church. He believes that the siege was a test from god. He shares an experience of seeing an icon in the church cry tears of blood.

Scene – Prayer

The fighters pray – we see both Christian and Muslim prayer.

Scene – A negotiation

The monk brings news of a deal by the international delegation, the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority. According to the deal, 26 people will be exiled to Gaza and 13 to Europe. There is no further information. The fighters are told to sign the paper if they agree. The men have a long discussion and eventually decide to reject the deal.

Video

We see images of Bethlehem under siege. Heavy military occupation, empty streets, curfew.

Scene – A young woman calls

There is a phone call from a young woman. Her baby is sick and because of the siege she cannot take him to hospital. She asks the fighters to leave the church so that the siege will be over and her baby can live.

The fighters are in a very difficult situation. One of them makes a speech:

“We have a siege. We have martyrs, we have injured people, we have thirst, we have hunger-‐ we have all these things. But we have to take into account all the givens of the situation, inside the church and outside. There is a collective suffering and we have to take responsibility for this. Yes, we are fighting for the freedom of our people against the Israeli occupation but the facts of the situation have changed. If they are accusing me of being responsible then I must make a sacrifice. We are faced with the Israeli information machine, which is in many languages, and this machine reverses the facts, makes black white and white black, makes the oppressed the oppressor and the oppressor the oppressed.All truths are reversed. We are standing in front of our people, and our names are being repeated for forty days as the reason for the siege. And our people are protecting us, because without our people we are nothing.The alphabet of the Revolution tells youthat the Revolution is a fish and the people are the sea. And if you come out of the sea, you are dead. You are nothing. So you have to take into account a number of factors, not only military but also human ones. You have moral obligations toward your people. If we know that a pregnant woman is going to deliver and she can’t get to the hospital because of the siege, we must ask, why? If they are saying that we are the reason, and the opportunity arises for an honorable solution, we must cooperate.”

The men decide to take the deal.

Video footage: The fighters exit the church; kiss the ground of their homeland and wave goodbye to their families. They drive off on a bus.

Scene – Interview

It is 2015. The men tell of their life in exile and how they long toreturn to Palestine.

Scene – Tourist guide

It is 2015. Issa enters. “The Church is the place of our eternal light. The light that gives us the beginning and the end. Without this light we cannot walk on this earth. This church is the heart of our land. Our holy land. We are born in this land and we have to live here even if we face difficulties. We are the sons of this land. This is why we take the strength and the power from our Lord Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary and we continue on our path. I hope tha God will bless us and show us the way to the real peace that we are looking for.”

Most of these incidents never happened, of course. The monks were hostages. The church was desecrated. Nuns took care of the wounded, not the terrorists. They never killed four Israeli soldiers. The idea that no one in Bethlehem could go to the hospital for weeks is ludicrous. The story of the mother being forced to speak at gunpoint is fiction.

To have such a play glorifying terror to be performed at NYU is outrageous.

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